“Example of rectitude guided by an ethical spirit”

Enrico Fermi told to the children of our time through the eyes of four fictional characters who saw him up close. A way to present a giant of science to young people in a volume that can teach a lot even to more mature readers. The father of the first nuclear reactor, protagonist of the Manhattan project, the research program that led to the creation of the first atomic bombs, lives again in the pages of ‘Enrico Fermi. The atomic genius. The book written by Andrea Pau – with the scientific advice of Vincenzo Barone, professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Western Piedmont – is published by Gallucci Publisher on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Nobel Prize winner’s death on 28 November 1954.

Who was Enrico Fermi and how can we tell it to young people who are familiar with his figure? “He was a scientist and a coherent person – says Pau to Adnkronos -. His figure teaches us that none of us, even a person with a higher intellect like him, is destined not to make mistakes. We all have the possibility of committing them. We must be guided, however, by a certain ethical rectitude and by a way of understanding our role in this world. Fermi can be an example: he tried to behave in the best possible way. He knew that we are only men and often we give rise to acts greater than ourselves, without being able to do much about it. But the important thing is to be guided by profound ethics. F

ermi is thisprofoundly ethical“.

That of the scientist was a complex and multifaceted figure that must be considered in its entirety by studying it in depth. “It is true – reflects Pau, a children’s writer since 2010 – that, to describe Fermi, one cannot ignore the moment in which the atomic bomb that will be launched in Japan is tested. This is one of the strongest phases of his biography In reality, however, there is much more: there is a person who sometimes changed his mind, but was always consistent in the search for an explanation to the deepest questions he encountered.”

Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938Fermi was one of the most significant scientists of his time. A ‘giant’ who, after leading the group of ‘boys from via Panisperna’, moved to the United States where he continued his work. Telling an audience of young readers about one of the most important researchers in modern history “is not so trivial: there are many biographies intended for more mature people. Some beautiful ones, such as the book by Fermi’s wife, Laura Capon, have long been out of print It is truly a novel full of very useful information and, among other things, very well written. In my narrative I tried to combine Fermi’s historical events with a part of fiction .I wanted there it was an external gaze – which allowed me to get closer to the readers – and not just that of the scientist. Fermi won the Nobel in 1938”, reiterates Pau, recalling that “at least a dozen of his students obtained it. He was a pre-eminent figure also in the field of teaching. He had a great talent in transmitting his knowledge. He had no jealousy in transmitting what he had discovered in the years of his experiments, and in those in which he tried to combine experimental physics with theoretical physics”.

Also remembering Guglielmo Marconi, whose 150th anniversary of his birth is celebrated this year, the writer finally underlines that “there was a moment in which Italian science had pre-eminence. Our scientists, thanks to improved funding, they had exponential growth. Everything stopped when fascist Italy headed towards the misfortune of war. German physicists had had ‘losses’ due to Nazism: very many they, who were Jews, left. The same thing happened in Italy. Fermi was not Jewish, but his wife was. In the aftermath of the racial laws, just when he won the Nobel, he decided to leave Italy and settle in the States United States of America. This teaches us that it is very likely that, when the scientist’s freedom is linked to the destinies of a regime, his desire to dedicate his life to science is boycotted, cut and burned , Fermi always did. There is a close link between freedom and the ability to advance in one’s studies”, concludes Pau.